#9 Charm City Takes Down #8 Boston, 89-77

By Ruby Khan, Last updated Sat Apr 4 2009 4:21pm

BOSTON, MA -- Bostonians can handle bad drivers, but last Saturday at Shriners Auditorium the Charm City Rollergirls brought stop-and-go traffic of a different kind.

In their hotly contested second meeting, Charm City defeated the Boston Massacre 89-77, giving the derby-obsessed more data with which to speculate about September’s Eastern Regionals seeding. Skater for skater, both teams are well matched in terms of skill and experience, but ultimately Charm City’s trademark snails-pace packs and ability to split the pack in a nanosecond edged out Boston’s up-front defense. (Check out DNN's archived boutcast from Hambone and Slack Kerowack for the play-by-play.)

First time derbygoers in the audience were treated to a highly technical bout where timing was everything. Again and again Boston blockers had to come to a dead stop and wait for Charm to inch forward and re-form the pack. As the penalty box started filling up, both teams tried to run out the clock and avoid power jams by taking as long as they possibly could to cross the pivot line after the first whistle.

Claire D. Way was the Massacre’s high scorer with 37 of her team’s 77 points. While that tally is nothing to sneeze at, Charm’s slow pack and hard hits rarely allowed her to get up to full speed, effectively neutralizing her usual hopping and ducking. MVP Krushpuppy was able to sneak through on the inside line often enough to score 22 points total.

Charm brought a full complement of jammers, but only MVP Joy Collision and Flo Shizzle did any major damage. Boston and Charm traded lead twice in the first period (both times on 10-point power jams) before Joy turned in a 20-0 quadruple grand slam in jam 13, swinging the momentum decisively over to Charm’s side and giving her a first period total of 33 points. Flo’s 33 points in the second half sealed Boston’s fate. Altogether the pair scored 68 of their team’s 89 points.

After Joy's 20-0 with 8 minutes left in the first, Boston spent the remainder of the bout hovering between 13 and 30 points down, but was never more than a couple of big jams away from retaking the lead. The half ended at 46-29 for Charm City, and the Baltimore girls opened up their biggest lead at 61-31 early in the second half, but Boston continued to scratch and claw to keep the game in hand.

In the game's penultimate jam, the score stood at Charm City 89, Boston 74 with 1:43 left on the clock. Flo Shizzle took the jam star for Baltimore against Krushpuppy for Boston. After over a minute of both jammers being pummeled by intense defense, Flo Shizzle finally burst out of the pack for lead -- but called the jam immediately with 16 seconds left on the clock. The Boston bench alertly took the opportunity to call their final timeout, giving Boston one final chance to create the win -- shades of their classic battle with Carolina at Eastern Regionals.

With the period clock nearly expired and just one chance to pull off the (difficult, but not unimaginable) 16-point jam Boston would need to win, both teams chose to field jammers with 3 minors -- Joy Collision for Charm City against Maura Buse for Boston. The home team caught a huge break when Joy Collision was sent to the box on a minor back blocking call, and Charm City fans might have been forgiven for getting flashbacks to Charm City's July 2008 bout with Madison, where they lost their jammer and the lead in the opening pass of the last jam ... but things wouldn't play out the same way this time.

The opportunity for a last-minute reversal ended on Maura's first scoring pass, as she was able to score only 3 before committing a minor but fatal track cut and joining Joy in the box, ending the jam at its natural -- if anti-climactic --  conclusion. Despite a 13-0 run in the last six jams of the night, Boston never regained the lead after Joy’s 20-point jam.

Dolly Rocket — who skated with and against Boston frequently during her tenure with Providence Roller Derby — again proved to be the bane of opposing jammers. Her ability to snake laterally across the track to booty block or slam into an opponent often bought her teammates the split second they needed to race up and re-join the front of the pack. When paired with Flo, the two formed a formidable wall. “Charm’s blockers are really heavy hitters. They were able to stay very tight and still make huge hits even while barely skating,” says Boston’s Maura Buse, “Their one-on-one both offensively and defensively was great.”

The past few Massacre bouts have been dominated by Shellby Shattered, Lois Carmen Dominator, and Harley Quinn’s front-of-pack walls. And while they were critical in keeping Charm scoreless for 23 of 36 jams, back-of-pack blockers like Quick Sandy, Etta Maims, and Anna WrecksYa shouldered much of the responsibility in preventing split packs and forcing major track-cutting penalties on Charm jammers.

It remains to be seen if this bout was enough for Boston and Charm to swap spots in DNN’s power rankings, but tournament seeding is still months away. Both teams have stacked their schedule with challenging bouts as they gun for their first trip to Nationals. The Massacre plays #1 Gotham in New York’s season opener on March 28 and hosts #3 Philadelphia on April 18. Charm went on to defeat Maine 156-52 the day after the Boston bout and plays #15 Pikes Peak and Gotham at home on April 18.

Photos: Robert Klein, Craig Lammes